824 



BULLETIN OF THE BUREAU OF FISHERIES 



SOURCES FROM WHICH THE GULF OF MAINE RECEIVES ITS 



WATERS 



In few parts of the world is the coast water that bathes the continental shelf as 

 sharply demarked from the oceanic water outside the edge of the continent as it is 

 off the east coast of North America, from the Grand Banks on the north to Cape 

 Hatteras on the south. Not only is the former much colder and much less saline 

 than the latter, but the transition from the one type to the other is often remarkably 

 abrupt. To see the warm sapphire blue of the so-called "Gulf Stream" give place 

 to the cold bottle-green water over the banks is a familiar spectacle to mariners 

 sailing in from sea. While it is unusual to meet as abrupt a transition as Smith (1923, 

 pi. 5) describes for one occasion (March 27, 1922) south of the Grand Banks, where 



